Tanya Davis....

 Recently while browsing the information superhighway I stumbled upon the poetry of Ms. Tanya Davis. Not only is she an amazing poet/musician, but she's from Nova Scotia! My brother was born in Canada (even farther north than Nova Scotia) so for some reason the mention of NE Canada gives me some strange sense of familial pride. :)

I love the way she writes - it's as though she crawled into my brain and jotted down a few notes while she was in there. 

Her website is http://tanyadavis.ca/index.html

And some of her words....

To do

remember things
first
write them down
neatly
organize your scatter
make lists to make yourself
feel better
punctuation helps
crossing out
is key
means you've completed something
else
you've just moved on
well,
at least it made it on the list

Keep it on my fridge 

I could stretch more, complain less
be more dependable and stress less
i could confess my love to all the ones i've always wanted to
tell them what i'm thinking if they ever ask, be honest to myself
let my hard feelings pass
if the people that i love don't pass my feelings back

i could become that person who always looks serene
the traffic doesn't bother me and neither do the bees
i could do more favours
help more old ladies cross the street
savour my chocolate and behave more neighborly
i could do lots of things

engage strangers in conversations make more offerings
donate portions of my wages to poor places that are more worse off than me
i could do all of this and then some
write a list
keep it on my fridge
to keep my attention
but what are my intentions with this
is it about ethics
or having my name mentioned
a frame of reference
to guide my efforts
or a game that i am in
and if i became that magnanimous person, maybe i would win?

Or maybe it's just a means to ease my conscience
make a list and cross things off of it
so that in this messed-up world i could feel content
well, i'd like to think that peace of mind is a selfless goal
but i guess it depends on how you get there, which way you go
and i would like to get there
spend some peaceful time before i get too old
i might be walking in the right direction but often
it's hard to know
am i being too hard on myself or not hard enough at all
do i have enough goals
the right mix of big and small
realistic hopes or idealistic flaws

i don't know all this
it's why i question it i guess
make commitments to improve
lists of goals i should pursue
and then self-reflect
to hold myself in check
and do the best that i could do